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Kevin Ross wrote: Best of luck with the Kitchen - as you know i'm no stranger to those diversions from modelling

I got diverted too recently

I checked that the Kadet was still OK after being abandoned in favour of the delights of struggling with an IKEA kitchen build. Apart from adding a receiver and battery, there's a strip of blue tissue trim to add to the front of the fuselage, then perhaps it won't be too long before we get some freedom and a spot of decent weather to go with it. While browsing the Outerzone the other day I came across this encouraging story, thought you might like to read it.

outerzone.co.uk/viewpoint/entry.asp?ID=11

The recent warm spell got me back out into the garden working on the long overdue Kadet. The winter in a damp shed hadn't been kind to the windscreen glue, I'd left it pinned after gluing it in place, the pins had rusted and stained the glued area, and the glue hadn't set in the cold and had run into places where it shouldn't. Finally I got the screen cleaned and re-glued, this time using plated pins. The blue tissue trim on the fuselage needed to be finished, but before I could do that I had to finalised fitting the engine cowl. Once again the winter and damp had made the cowl buckle and start to delaminate. Perhaps my idea of making a cowl from tissue and PVA glue wasn't one of my better ones. When balsa was plentiful, I made cowls from block and thick sheet balsa, unfortunately I don't have any now. Rummaging in the "bits box" I came across a piece of useful looking 1/2" sheet, useful but nowhere near enough to make a cowl. Then it occurred to me that it might be possible to saw curved sections out of the sheet, and make a cowl on the same principle as making a barrel. This would be perhaps the most economic way to use the small piece of sheet balsa. Fortunately, I had a pair of rejected wing tip blocks, they yielded a couple of small but useful pieces that were 1" thick, very handy for making the underside of the cowl. The photos more show how its going better than I can describe it. No doubt there'll be a good deal of filler in the joints, but its quite encouraging to find that even the curved offcuts can be used to fill a space.

Novel way of cowling the engine Brian. I assume you will make a hatch so you can access items that inevitably will need twiddling with.

Thanks for your interest Phil. The OSFS .40 has the slow running adjustment facing up, the needle valve extension hangs out the RH side just behind the exhaust. Engine mount screws easily accessible with a Pozi screwdriver, throttle cable disconnect by upward facing M3 grub screw. The cowl is now fully assembled and glued. If its warm enough tomorrow I'll start the final shaping. The engine will be taken out so that I can fuel proof the insides of the cowl.

Good work Brian - If you get stuck for balsa again you could plan a raid on the local wind farm.
I'm about to start the rebuild of my "Rainbow " - if I cannot find a moulded cowl I may follow
your construction technique.

Colin.